


In Morning Light

by Evandar



Series: The Kings of the North [8]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Blind Thranduil, Communication, Established Relationship, Interfering Relatives, M/M, Mentioned Previous Wives, Relationship Discussions, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 13:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12608064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: A cold morning dawns in Dale, and Bard and Thranduil finally have an overdue conversation.





	In Morning Light

**Author's Note:**

> This is set immediately after _The Lord of Lorien_ and references that fic a lot. 
> 
> Two years, I've been trying to write this fic. Two. Years.

He drifts for a while between waking and sleep. He is warm and content in his bed: a slender body is in his arms, their long legs tangled with his own and their breath slow and even on his throat. Gossamer hair is wound around the fingers of his right hand, and once his mind shifts more towards wakefulness, he begins to stroke his fingers through the fine strands.

In his arms, Thranduil is still. He is boneless with relaxation, plastered against Bard’s side with his face buried in the crook between neck and shoulder. In truth, Bard thinks he might be able to stay here forever – certainly, it would be good for Thranduil if he did. For all the time they’ve spent together, he’s never seen Thranduil so at peace.

Perhaps they should share a bed more often.

The thought is a treacherous one. It reminds him of Lord Celeborn and the ice in his voice as he spoke of an Elven Princess long ago. Luthien, she’d been called, and she’d been Thranduil’s own cousin before she’d mourned herself into shadow and despair. He strokes his fingers through Thranduil’s hair and stares up at the canopy of the tent above them and feels a lump rise in his throat. 

He’s in his thirties now. He has another twenty years before he’ll be an old man by the standards of his people. Perhaps thirty if he’s lucky and a lifetime of hard labour doesn’t catch up with him too quickly. Thirty years is barely a blink in the lifetime of an Elf, and he knows that Thranduil is a lot older than he seems. The battles he references, the things he says sometimes… Next to him, Bard’s life will be as brief as a mayfly’s.

A long hand slides up his chest as Thranduil shifts against him and sighs. “My uncle found you, then,” he murmurs. His voice is soft and low and the feel of him speaking against Bard’s neck sends a shiver through him. 

“Aye,” he says quietly.

“Lord Celeborn forgets that I have suffered hardship before,” Thranduil says. He lifts his head and peers down at Bard: one eye white and unseeing, the other the deep familiar blue that Bard has grown to adore. He has made no effort to hide the injury on his face, and Bard finds himself torn between staring at the movement of exposed tendons and trying desperately not to look at it in case he causes offense. “I am less fragile than he believes,” Thranduil continues, and Bard meets his uneven gaze.

“He told me of Luthien,” Bard says. “And that you would fade as she did.” He stops before he can continue: Thranduil already looks less than impressed, and Bard cannot imagine that he will take the phrase _I am not worth this_ overly well. Not when, for months, Thranduil has been trying to make a king out of him. 

Despite his silence, Thranduil seems to know what he was about to say. Sorrow flickers over his scarred face, and he looks away; something tightens in Bard’s chest and he tightens his grip on Thranduil’s waist and resumes his petting of his hair. He has no desire to ever see such an expression on Thranduil’s face ever again. One so fair should never have cause to feel so sad – and nor should one such as Bard have the right to cause such sadness.

“Legolas was not grown from an acorn,” Thranduil says after a while. “Nor did he wake under starlight in the Elder Days when the world was new. I had a wife, once, and lost her long ago. I have lost both of my parents, and what kin I have that still linger on these shores either have forgotten our connection or prefer to ignore it save for when it suits them. There are those who would claim that my lingering here is because I did not love them. They would claim that I am so carved from ice that their losses have not prayed on me; that there has never been the temptation to sail or to lose myself in grief.”

Bard wonders if those people know Thranduil at all. When they first met, he remembers he thought Thranduil cold and expressionless. He has learned in the months since how to read the tones of Thranduil’s voice; read his manners and his moods through the twitches of his fingers and the tilts of his head. He is restrained, yes, in a way that makes him seem almost alien at times, but he is far from untouchable. In the cocoon of their bed, wrapped in Bard’s arms and illuminated by the morning light seeping through the canvas of his tent, he is so very soft and warm and very, very real. 

He thinks to his own losses. His parents when they were yet young, even by the standards of Men; of Mari and her wide smile and kind eyes. She would have called him all kinds of fool, he thinks, and he can’t help but smile at the thought of her cursing at him from beyond the grave. 

A lack of patience for idiocy is one thing she and Thranduil have in common.

“You were tempted then?” he asks. 

“More than once,” Thranduil replies. “But I have a son who is my dearest treasure, and a kingdom of people who rely on me to protect and guide them. There is purpose and joy in my lingering here, and though one day all around me may die or sail or fade into the trees as my Silvan folk are wont to do, I will yet have joy in these lands and love in the memory of those who have gone before.” He tilts his head. “Does that make sense to you?”

He thinks again of Mari and how Tilda is near enough her double; how Sigrid has inherited her firm grasp of reality and her determination; how Bain has her smile and her laughter. He thinks of Dale and her crumbling walls and her population of refugees. There is love and there is love; there is grief and there is duty, and they are all of them entwined. For the both of them.

The lump in his throat returns. “It does,” he says.

Thranduil hums softly in acknowledgment. Bard feels him shift; feels the powerful muscles moving under his clothes and his starlit skin, and he returns the kiss that Thranduil presses to his lips.

“You love me then,” he says when they part. 

Thranduil’s answering smile is a little wicked. Bard grins back, and pulls Thranduil down into another kiss. They may not have forever, but Bard plans to stay this way for as long as he is able.


End file.
